Click here to access the tenant handbook

The City Council aims to provide good-quality, cost effective services, but recognises that, at times, things can go wrong. If they do, we need to know so we can put them right and learn from them.

To raise a complaint with us click here to take you to the complaints page.

The Housing Ombudsman Service deals with disputes between landlords and tenants in England. The service was established under the Housing Act 1996 with jurisdiction over more than 2,000 landlords. Under the Housing Act 1996, all housing associations (RSL’s) must belong to the service by law. This includes any landlord who has taken over the management of council housing, such as whg and WATMOS.

The Housing Ombudsman Service aim’s to provide a fair and effective way of dealing with complaints against member landlords from their tenants. The service, will try to remedy the situation by either asking the landlord to change their way of working or offering financial redress.

Visit the Housing Ombudsman website www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk  for more information.

Compliance with the Complaint Handling Code forms part of the statutory membership obligations set out in the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. Landlords must comply with the requirements of the Code or offer an explanation to the Ombudsman as to why they do not. A self-assessment has been undertaken against the Complaint Handling Code which the Housing Ombudsman published in July 2020.

Currently the Council is not meeting all of the requirements of the Code; therefore the new procedure and policy along with a number of actions are required to be implemented in the business plan to meet the compliance of the complaints handling code for 2021/2022.

The self assessment can be downloaded on the right hand side.